Offender EM Market in Europe and North America Reached € 648 Million in 2016

Market research provider Berg Insight released new findings about the market for Electronic Monitoring (EM) of offenders. The number of participants in Electronic Monitoring programmes on a daily basis in Europe and North America amounted to about 180,000 in 2016.

The aim of EM programmes is to increase offender accountability, reduce recidivism rates and enhance public safety by providing an additional tool to traditional methods of community supervision. Even though EM has been in use for more than a decade in most countries, it remains relatively rare in the context of European and North American corrections systems.

The market value for EM including equipment, software and outsourced services in Europe was € 161 million in 2016. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 percent, this number is expected to reach € 305 million by 2021. The North American market for EM is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent from US$ 535 million in 2016 to US$ 851 million in 2021. The use of GPS technology has grown rapidly on the North American market in recent years and GPS-based devices now account for more than 70 percent of the active units.

In Europe, the most common forms of EM equipment are RF systems used in home detention curfew schemes. The use of GPS systems is however gaining ground in jurisdictions throughout Europe. The newly launched pilot scheme in England and Wales signals a way forward for European EM programmes, which are largely influenced by one another. Berg Insight is of the opinion that the market for EM equipment and services is in a growth phase which will continue throughout the forecast period. Increased use of EM will be mainly driven by further adoption in pre-trial and parole supervision as well as sex offender legislation.

The largest EM programmes in Europe are operated by consortiums of companies. Leading EM equipment providers on the European market include G4S and 3M Electronic Monitoring, where the latter also holds a significant market share in North America. The wholly-owned GEO Group subsidiary BI Incorporated is the largest provider of EM equipment and services on the North American market. Additional companies with notable market shares in North America include Satellite Tracking of People (part of Securus Technologies) and Numerex.

“The declining cost of hardware components and cellular connectivity has driven the adoption of GPS-based systems on the North American market in recent years“, said Fredrik StÃ¥lbrand, IoT Analyst, Berg Insight. He adds that software is likely to play an increasingly important role in determining the winners in this market. “Vendors are increasingly focusing on analytics software development to offer support tools for officers that are faced with a growing amount of location data that is generated by the expanding installed base of GPS-based systems“ concluded StÃ¥lbrand.